The Great Catsby

by B K Baxter

  I was lying on the porch, hanging out with my roommate and her friend. Things had died down since the craziness of last week, in which I had to save the town from a murderer, but it was still all anyone could talk about.

  Me? It bored me. How many times could you hear about your own valor before it became stale?

  “I still don’t know why Dinah would do it,” Char was saying from one of the two rocking chairs. “I’ve been thinking about it all week, what it would take for me to actually murder another human being. How Dinah could have gotten to that place, I may never understand.”

  Jade nodded from her rocking chair. “It would have to be some need inside her that was stronger than her fear. And fulfilling that need would have to have been worth the risk many times over.”

  “But a museum?” Char asked, grimacing. “I mean, I’m a doctor, so I think you can say I’m fairly deep in nerd territory—”

  Jade nodded, murmuring, “The librarian agrees.”

  Char laughed at the interruption. “But even for a nerd like me, a museum isn’t something I could see killing for. I mean, Dinah was on the level of Indiana Jones here, but even he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Except maybe if you count Nazis,” Jade countered.

  “Well, okay, maybe not Nazis, but still—”

  “I know what you mean.” Jade considered the question. “But maybe it wasn’t the museum or just the museum. Maybe it was more of what it represented. A legacy.” She sat forward, getting into her argument. “I mean, think about it. Dinah isn’t married. She doesn’t have any children. And if the records I dug through at City Hall are right, she’s one of the few left in the area that still carries the Mercer name.”

  Char rocked slowly in thought. “Patrick is also a bachelor with no kids. I guess as one of the last of her line, she might have seen herself as the final line of defense. If she did nothing, her family’s name would fade into history. But a museum complex that bore her family’s name would ensure the Mercers were remembered.”

  “That might be enough to give her life meaning,” Jade said.

  “And enough to end the lives of others,” Char said, a shiver going through her.

  I stood, leaping into Char’s lap to let her know I agreed and to see if I could get a sneeze out of her. Humans and their weaknesses were so amusing.

  “Oh, Chonks,” she said, letting out a grunt as I forced the air out of her lungs. “You’re a healthy boy, aren’t you?”

  I swished my tail under her nose, eliciting the sneeze I was waiting for. I was quick to jump out of the way before it could hit me as collateral damage.

  “Chonks, you have to stop doing that or Char won’t come to visit anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Char piled on. “Meaning I won’t sneak you little bits of pepperoni when I bring a pizza with me.”

  “You do that?” Jade asked, indignant.

  I sat on my haunches to see where this would go.

  “Just a little,” Char said, scrunching her shoulders in glee. “I want to make sure he likes me.”

  “For god sakes, woman, you’re a medical doctor! You know what pepperoni could do to a cat. Lord knows he’s fat enough.”

  “Cats can have a little pepperoni,” Char said with a smile and a shrug.

  Jade rolled her eyes, leaning back and groaning to the ceiling. “You two will be the death of me.”

  “I can just see your tombstone now. ‘She died as she lived. Annoyed.’”

  Jade laughed, and it was a good sound. Although I’d had my doubts initially about moving to this muggy municipality, this little Louisiana town had grown on me. It seemed that my roommate felt much the same.

  “New Orleans isn’t like I expected,” she mused.

  “I told you, people down south are just as messed up as folks in the rest of the country. We have our secrets and our lies. Just look at the screwed-up relationship between Tabby and Vince. There were two people who were lying to themselves as much as they were lying to each other.”

  Jade sighed. “I find myself feeling sorry for Tabby. She came to the book club hoping to impress her husband, to make herself fit into his mold for his perfect wife. But Tabby realized it was an impossible task, so she reverted back to her bad behaviors, encouraging petty jealousy and in-fighting.”

  “Don’t feel too sorry for her,” Char said. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Tabby left a ton of misery in her wake. Look at what she did to Taz. She threatened to evict her own mother. And she had no problems stealing Mercy’s husband.”

  “Mercy’s husband didn’t seem to mind being stolen,” Jade countered.

  Char accepted the point. “Vince isn’t blameless either. I completely agree.” She paused. “It’s like in Gatsby. Tom and Daisy, the careless people who used everyone else as toys to be played with against their backdrop of boredom or entitlement.”

  I thought of the line she was referring to and thought Fitzgerald put it better when he said, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

  Other people like Jade and Char, like Taz who’d just chosen the wrong time to try and open up to others. People like Mercy and Gita and Tammy, imperfect women who nevertheless didn’t deserve the pain they were brought.

  “The most important thing is that Taz is free,” Char reminded her friend. “And from what I heard today, Vince is getting a taste of his own medicine.”

  “Do share,” Jade said, and I perked up my ears for this latest piece of town gossip.

  “Vince was suing Mercy over her alimony, claiming that she was having an affair while they were still married. His proof? Tammy Carter’s testimony that she’d seen Jimmy and Mercy carrying on before the divorce.”

  “Ah ha!” Jade said, raising an index finger to the ceiling. “So that’s why Vince didn’t want to evict her. And it must be the real deal that Tammy was talking about. The one she said was for her food truck but that we both knew was malarkey.”

  Char nodded. “It gets better. When it came time for Tammy to testify, she couldn’t. She said she didn’t care if she ended up homeless, but she was tired of all the deceit. Mercy didn’t start seeing Jimmy until after the divorce, and furthermore, Vince tried to pay her by knocking off some of the back rent she owed to lie for him.”

  My roommate started to clap as Char continued. “The judge dismissed the case, and even said he’d be referring the case to the parish prosecutor to consider charges for Vince himself.”

  The girls continued their conversation, trading barbs about the kind of punishment they’d mete out for Vince if they were the judge, but I quickly lost interest. Stretching, I clambered down the porch steps and into the yard. Jade wasn’t paying any attention, so I could enjoy the short breath of freedom she was offering. Besides, I could use some behind the ear scratches, and I knew where to find the best ones.

  As I ambled around the corner of the house, I congratulated myself once again on solving the mystery of the dead trophy wife. It was almost painful, having to watch my roommate flounder around from clue to clue, making mistake after mistake. It was almost enough to make me throw up a hairball just watching her waste time and effort.

  I couldn’t blame the humans. Their sense of smell was just so pitiful when compared to my superior species. If Jade could smell like I could, she would have smelled the medicine in Dinah’s purse during that first book club meeting. That same smell was present at the crime scene, which I just happened to stumble upon when making my rounds of the new town.

  And it was the same smell I’d caught a whiff of when the homicidal woman had come out of the building with the glowing green sign and the giant eyes in the window. I’d seen her on my first jaunt around New Orleans, and I’d wondered what she was doing, creeping around a closed storefront in the middle of the night.

  I had done my best to give Jade all the signa
ls she needed to solve the crime. But humans were just so darn slow sometimes. How much more of a clue did she need than me burying Dinah’s card in my litter box? That is the ultimate insult among cat-kind.

  Catching sight of Ethan’s plaid shirt, I hustled up to where he was crouched next to the side of the house.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said, scratching me in the way only he could.

  I rubbed all over him as best I could, marking him as mine.

  Ethan rubbed my back. “I think I found your escape hatch,” he said, pointing to the broken basement window I’d been using as a cat door for the past couple months. “I’m pretty sure Jade is going to ask me to repair this. Then you’ll be out of luck, bud.”

  I bristled, angry at being denied my sovereign right to freedom. Still, I knew that if he blocked this exit, I’d just find another one. The old plantation house was a wonderland of warrens and hidden passages, after all.

  Running after him, I climbed on the porch just as he announced his finding to my roommate.

  “Oh yeah, we’re going to have to fix that,” Jade said, and I threw myself down at her feet, biting her toes in her sandals.

  “Chonks, you’re a crazy person!” she yelped, pulling her toe out of my grasp. “I wonder how many adventures you’ve been on since you found that broken window.”

  I looked up at her, my expression as innocent as could be. She’d find out soon enough about my latest adventure. I had already ferreted out another secret, one that has been buried for almost a decade. But it wouldn’t be long before that secret was brought to light.

  I wondered how the town would take it, when one lie after another would be exposed. And even those who seemed innocent were found to have blood on their hands.

  Would Jade still fight for her friends if she knew about the skeletons in their closets… or their backyards?

  Ethan stooped to run his hand down my back and I forgot all about the dark thoughts swirling around in my head. This was a man who was excellent with his hands. There had to be a way to get him to come over more often. I’d thought the trick with the mouse would work for months, but clever human that he was, he’d figured it out.

  Maybe it was time to break something else…

  THE END

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  About the Author

  B.K. is a pen name for a couple of good friends who love reading a good mystery and are as cheeky as they come. Murder She Wrote was one of their favorite childhood shows and there wasn't a day that went by that they were getting into trouble looking for a mystery in the neighborhood to solve. With a ton of ideas and imagination, you're in for a funny wild ride.

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  The Great Catsby

  A Nola Tail Mystery Book #1

  Copyright © 2020 by B.K. Baxter

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and plot are all either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons – living or dead – is purely coincidental.

  First Edition.

  Cover Designer: Jeff Brown

  Editor: Eric Martinez